The conflict you feel between your desire to better your community, the reflexive pride you take in your nation, and that lingering sense of dissatisfaction that follows your best intentions, is now a book of fifty prose poems that grabs you, the American democratic process, by your collar, leans right into your face, its breath reeking of whiskey and miso soup, and hisses the words "inherently undemocratic."

Max Winchester

Max Winchester (1951-2011) was a poet whose
influence can be found throughout American letters.
One of the founding members of the literary arts
collective Brickwall Circle, Winchester was a winner
of the American Poetry Board’s Younger Poet Prize.
In the 1970s, he changed his focus from poetry for
the page to performance poetry, sharing stages with
the likes of Lou Reed, the Sex Pistols, and Captain
Beefheart. He also performed in a controversial
multimedia piece by Himmler Linz Kestral Kraktow
written especially for him. He served as managing
editor of the alternative newsmagazine Globe, and
wrote the unpublished book-length poem Sphere.
He devoted much of his later life to teaching poetry
to prisoners in Washington State. How to Vote
was found among his manuscripts, and is believed
to be one of the last works he completed before his
death.